ایک عارضی الوداع
by tHe dAily ScRibbLeR
Summary: Sherlock and Irene. A motel in Karachi. He's already solved the puzzle. She just wants to play the game. It's only a temporary goodbye. That's all it really is. Pre-Reichenbach Falls.


**_ایک عارضی الوداع_**

* * *

><p>When he met her, he hadn't been able to get a read on her–as if question marks popped up instead of observations. But when she begged, he knew <em>exactly <em>what she was feeling. Exactly what he could deduce about her. From the deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes to the slight parting of her lips. Her heartbeat quickened and her body temperature almost-certainly increased. On the verge of letting tears fall down her face, she was a woman so completely devoid of her trademark flirtatious smile and devious glint in her eyes that he could barely recognize her. But this was her on her knees. Submitting herself to him at her weakest–her most vulnerable. The hurt etched onto her face which marred the confident look she seemingly always sported. When he left, he repeated the mantra in his head. The mantra he had repeated to himself and drilled into his head ever since his brother handed him the cigarette. _All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage._ He's still not sure if he had been repeating it to himself as a way to accept it or to come up with a way to refute it. He repeated the words to himself as if he were turning a stone in his hand, taking in the smooth surface and starting anew with each rotation.

.&.

He's never liked being toyed with. Moriarty was never _toying _with him (unless you count those inane remarks he considered witty), he was simply challenging him. He was a consulting criminal doing his job. Someone with a clear objective and a precise way of exacting said objective. Despite the rather unconventional way of performing it. She started out with a goal, a clear, achievable goal with a relatively well-reasoned plan. But then she began to toy with him. To rile him up and try to provoke a reaction. To toe the line and let herself get carried away. And, although she didn't _really _succeed, he concedes that she seemed to have the upper hand when it was nearing the end.

.&.

He certainly never anticipated that he would actually...miss her? The numerous times she blatantly and crudely came on to him, the questions about dinner (which they really both knew was about much more than the second-least important meal of the day), the moans that elicited from his phone whenever she sent him a text. The things he once, as much as he hates to admit, found to be some of the rare not-boring parts of his day. She provided for mental stimulation (something he frequently lacked when in the company of the commonwealth). She had witty responses and was unpredictable in both action as well as retort. Even though she seemed to have succumbed to such _ordinary _desires, there was no doubt that she was anything but ordinary. She retained a fierceness and a determinedness that even he could not shake. A steeliness in her gaze that followed him out the door and stayed with him until he became paranoid with the thought she was somehow still _there_.

So he kept tabs on her. He followed the scarce paper trail she left for him and questioned her distraught assistant. He pieced together the information and found out about the bounty on her head a month before she arrived in Karachi. He pulled some strings with a man he helped escape from a prison sentence and was able to make his way into the inner circle just in time for her to be executed. He smirked when the tell-tale moaning came from his phone and felt an odd twinge, which he filed into the back of his mind to be ruminated over later, when he realized she chose to text him as her final goodbye. A right ending to the game they played, the continuous teasing and tricks.

But this wasn't the end of the game. In this version of the fairy-tale, she survives yet doesn't end up with the so-called prince. There is no finite ending. She's not whisked away to a castle and crowned queen of a nation. Instead, she's taken to the closest motel in Karachi and given a new identity and instructions about where to go and whom to call. The theory of it is quite romantic and thrilling: a man willing to infiltrate a known terrorist organization in order to save one of the only important women in his life. But, in reality, she's expected to leave the next day and he's growing more and more bored by each passing minute. She's no longer a mystery to him. He's solved the puzzle and, like a child, has no more interest in her. He knows her weakness and plays her games but he's no longer _really_ a part of them. Instead, he's more like an adult playing along with a child's make-believe story.

.&.

She knows that he expects her to steal away in the night. To leave him with some sort of finesse and semblance of her old self. But, as the banner on her rather famous website states, she knows when she is beaten. When he wakes up, she's already set out their breakfast. Leftovers of the dinner she had last night. He woke up to her lying directly across from him. Fully dressed, she looked out of place lying on the plain linens with her heels digging into the thin comforter. He knows she's been watching him while he slept yet he remained unnerved, as if her presence was merely something to be tuned out. She resists the natural furrow of her eyebrows at his seemingly non-response and instead a forced smile reaches her lips. _Have breakfast with me, Mr. Holmes_. She smiles–a genuine smile this time–and he raises an eyebrow with a slight upturn of his lips. They sit for breakfast and, although he mainly sticks to the watered-down kawah, she feels like she's somehow won. It's not dinner, but she figures that breakfast will have to do for now. He gives her back her phone and suddenly she's back to her old self. She smiles lasciviously and purposefully brushes her fingers along the underside of his wrist when she takes it back. She knows what this means. That this is end of the game for him. That he doesn't need it as some sort of keepsake stored in the recesses of his mind. She walks out with purpose and, through the closed door, hears the moan coming from his phone. _We both know this won't be the last you see of me, Mr. Holmes._

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: I know that it's been awhile since people have thought about Miss Adler (especially with those absolutely <span>divine<span> past two episodes) but I hope that you all enjoyed it all the same. I'd love to know what you all think of the story so don't hesitate to leave a review! Also, to all you fellow Americans, happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!_

_Thankfully, ZainaStacia corrected me with the title. It means, "Only a Temporary Goodbye" in Urdu, the predominate language in Karachi according to the always-helpful Wikipedia. I absolutely am in love with other languages (especially ones with such beautiful calligraphy) and I was really having a hard time coming up with a name for the story. The reason why I mistranslated was because I was going in between "Only a Temporary Goodbye" and "A Temporary Goodbye" for the title. I know, doesn't seem like much of a difference but for some reason I feel like it is._


End file.
